Chicken Gyros

With this latest cook, I wanted to make gyros out of chicken which resembled what I’ve made
in the past with beef and lamb mixtures.  This required an addition of fat to add moisture
and to help the ground meat stick together.  I chose to use beef marrow for this purpose, along with other ingredients that I already had on hand - chicken breasts, minced and drained
onions, minced garlic, garlic and onion powders, salt-free Cavender’s, Herbs de Provence,
sumac and sodium free chicken broth.

Everything got pureed in a food processor until it wound up as a fairly wet paste, which was rolled into as cylindrical a shape as I could manage, partially frozen, skewered, then fully frozen.

The Egg was dialed in at 275F, using oak and olive wood chunks.

I was worried that the high moisture content would prevent this vertical log from cooking in a
cohesive manner.  I was right.  About 2 hours in, I decided to take a peek.

Soooooooo.  Yeeaaahhh.  Not what I was shooting for.  No worries.  I had some 96 hour dough
that I needed to put to use and the flavor of the meat glob was outstanding.  I crafted a pizza
using the failed gyro log, tomatoes, sweet onions, parmesan, ricotta and fresh mozzarella cheeses.

It was hard to be too disappointed with how the meat turned out when the pizza turned out so
well.  However, I hadn’t given up just yet and determined what needed to change for my second attempt.  I used ground chicken breast and meat glue for the next effort, keeping everything else about the approach the same.

Two hours into the cook and so far so good.

All done with a much better outcome.

The chicken was sliced and lightly fried to give it some color.  Duck fat was
heated up for fries.

The chicken gyro was served with homemade tzatziki sauce and all the usual toppings, lettuce
onions, tomatoes and feta cheese.

The meat was tender, juicy and well seasoned and made for a nice little meal.  Definitely a
change of pace from the usual.

For dessert, I decided upon apple baklava.  The plan was to temper the usual heavy handed
sweetness of this dish with tart apples, along with a reduced amount of honey and sugar in the
syrup.  The syrup was made first, using no-sugar-added apple juice concentrate and 3 ounces
each of clover honey and granulated sugar, along with a cup of water.  This was reduced by a
third, until it was thickened.  A tablespoon of lemon juice was added and 2 cinnamon sticks
were tossed in to steep as the mixture cooled.

Ghee seasoned with Himalayan pink salt was heated on the Egg, along with chunks of Gala
apples which had been seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves and ginger, then
covered in the remaining apple juice concentrate.  Once the apples had softened, they were
cooked further on the stovetop until tender and the liquid was reduced.

The walnut portion of the filling included Biscoff cookies and some granulated sugar that was
quickly pulsed in a food processor.  This was seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.

With everything prepped and ready, I started the tedious phyllo dough layering process, placing the apple layers towards the center of the dish, and heavily basting each dough layer with ghee.

The baklava was baked at 350F for an hour.  Once done, the completely cooled honey apple
syrup was poured over and it was left to rest overnight for thorough saturation.

Finally time to snack on a piece.

The all-brown filling makes it hard to see the layers, so here’s a quick shot of a corner end
piece.

Using tart apples and small amounts of honey and sugar in this batch allowed for a real balance of flavors which are often muted by the overwhelming sweetness of this dessert.  The tart flavor helped to showcase the blend of spices.  The best description of this is a buttery, walnut filled baklava that was combined with an apple pie and a spice cookie crust.  Sticky, sweet good eats.